Square wave catalytic adsorptive voltammetric determination of osmium, ruthenium and lead in vegetable environmental bio-monitors

The present work regards the simultaneous voltammetric determination of Os(VIII), Ru(III) and Pb(II) by square wave catalytic adsorptive voltammetry (SWCAdV) in vegetable environmental bio-monitor matrices. The analytical procedure was verified by the analysis of the standard reference materials: Olive Leaves BCR-CRM 062 and Tomato Leaves NIST-SRM 1573a. Precision and accuracy, expressed as relative standard deviation and relative error, respectively, were generally lower than 6% in all cases, whereas the limits of detection for all elements were lower than 5.0 μg kg-1. Once set up on the standard reference materials, the analytical procedure was transferred and applied to laurel leaves sampled in proximity to superhighway and in the Po river mouth area. A critical comparison with spectroscopic measurements is discussed.